Yellow watery Diarrhea

Feb 11, 2008

I have been on Kaletra and combivir for about 3 years now. I just started a new pain medicine. The Fentanyl patch. I always do research on all my new medicine and found that it could interact with the Kaletra. I had a print out of it and give it to my pain specialist. He said it was okay to take both But since being on it i noticed an increase on diarrhea. Now since he increased the dose to 25mcg it is really really bad. it is all liquid. The patch is working great for the pain but maybe having a bad bad reaction with the Kaletra? can you tell me if this could be the problem? the only other medicine I'm taking is Norco for BT pain. Thanks,

Joey

Response from Dr. Henry

The concern about a drug interaction between fentanyl and Kaletra involves worry about high levels of the fentanyl due to a slowing of its clearance (removal) from the liver. Most patients with GI problems from fentanyl experience constipation. A small minority of patients in my experience develop diarrhea. There are many possible causes of diarrhea so evaluation for infection, pancreatic insufficiency, or other conditions is often warranted. KH

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